He says, the thought of the glory/appearance of the rose
means that thanks to intoxication, the wine-drinkers are becoming very drunk....
The meaning of the verse is that the thing that makes life enjoyable is love
of God; otherwise, what good is this unstable world? (174)

FWP:

This verse is one of his marvels. Just consider some of the
possibilities. In the first line, what is the status of the 'wine-drinkers'
who are 'wrecked'-- or, idiomatically, 'extremely drunk'? Here are some possibilities:

=they are 'wine-drinkers' because they have already drunk
a great deal of wine (thus their wild visions)
=they are 'wine-drinkers' because they used to frequent the wine-house in
former times (though now they no longer need it)
=they are only 'wine'-drinkers metaphorically; the real 'wine' they drink
is different

And what is the nature of their intoxication? Here are some
possibilities:

=the drinkers are intoxicated from the mere process of thought
itself
=the drinkers are intoxicated from visualizing a particular kind of glory/manifestation
of the beloved
=the drinkers are intoxicated because of the Rose itself, even if it's present
only in thought

Then when we try to put the two independent lines together,
that too we have to do on our own, with no grammatical guidance from the verse
itself. If we read (1) as prior to (2), we deduce that the winehouse is empty
because the fickle (former) drinkers have now abandoned it in favor of a different
form of intoxication. If we read (2) as prior to (1), we find that the winehouse
is so worthless (there's nothing there for us!) that the drinkers have been
forced to look elsewhere.

Thus the second line can have all these senses, and surely
a few more besides:

=the physical wine-house is now empty of customers and of
wine
=the physical wine-house is now desolate, ruined, shut down
=the physical wine-house is contemptible and worthless
=the 'door and walls' of the wine-house are worthless (only what is within
them has value)
=the wine-house is not necessary for intoxication ('there's nothing in it!')
=wine itself, the wine-house's stock in trade, is not necessary for intoxication

The radical undecideability of this verse comes from the
unknown relationships among several multivalent notions. The first line invokes
both 'wine-drinkers' and a form of intoxication apparently quite independent
of wine. The second line perhaps merely describes a condition of (physical)
emptiness, or even ruin, of the wine-house door and walls; or perhaps it strongly
disparages the wine-house door and walls, or the whole wine-house itself,
or even wine itself. We, the readers, get to choose-- and in fact have to
choose, since as usual Ghalib has cleverly denied us any guidance. How better
to turn a little two-line verse into almost an encyclopedia of possible thoughts
about drunkenness and wine?

And all this before we even consider the particularly complex,
fascinating wordplay! At the heart of it is ;xaraab
. If we pair it with sharaab in the second line, we
get two almost identical-looking words with close associations. If we pair
it with diivar-o-dar and ;xaak
and the colloquial ;xaak nahii;N (for more on this idiomatic
usage see {114,1}), we get images of ruins and
utter physical destruction. Then just as a perfect finishing touch, we can't
help but think of its plural form ;xaraabaat , meaning
literally 'ruins, desolate place', but commonly, in Urdu, 'tavern' (Platts
p.488). For an example of its use in this latter sense, see {131,1}.

Ghalib has a special fondness for juxtaposing dust and jalvah
; for examples, see {7,4}.

This verse reminds me of {169,5},
which is a more explicit (and therefore less piquant) treatment of the idea
that 'thought' is a (or even 'the'?) supreme intoxication.